The Chosen: Well of Souls Wrap Report

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The team leader at Rebelmind looks back at the horror-themed action RPG that shipped in North America last fall

By IGN Staff

Rebelmind's The Chosen: Well of Souls is an action RPG Vault had the pleasure of helping the studio to introduce. That occasion took place in the early part of March of 2005. At the time, it was called Frater, a title it retained outside North America, where it shipped last fall. The game stands apart through its choice of a horror-based theme. Seeking to rule the dual realms of humanity and darkness, the alchemist Marcus Dominus Ingens commands vast legions of terrifying devils and fearsome demons. He has already eliminated any potential challengers who might stand in his way, leaving only a final obstacle, God's Envoy, whom he knows he is not yet powerful enough to defeat. To attain the upper hand, he has unleashed his infernal minions to collect human souls, thereby increasing his strength while weakening his enemy.

Frater Simon, Elena and Tong Wong are the three playable characters we can choose. Each of them offers a distinct set of abilities, and with the world's very future hanging ever so precariously in the balance, you must choose one to take on a challenge like none humanity has never faced before. Fortunately, some had the foresight to realize such dire circumstances might arise. As a result, they have all been specially trained to prepare for such an eventuality, and thus stand ready to pit themselves against the hordes of unsavory demonic creatures that are now threatening to bring about their nefarious master's intention to create a new, dark order. Having tracked the project ever since we took part in announcing it, we were particularly keen to seek out the post-release opinions of the developer's CEO and co-founder, Krzysztof Krawczyk.

The Project The Chosen, also known as Frater is a typical example of an action RPG game. From the very beginning, we planned it to be developed based on the ideas we had included in Space Hack. We wanted to develop and add new elements such as helpers (Golem, Neferkar), and the feature of combining weapons... These two became key ones in the gameplay.

One of our goals was to create a system that would allow the player to combine all objects with each other. It was a pretty daring decision, but it really worked out so that combining objects is a very strong point of our game.

The change of the title was suggested to us by our North American publisher, Meridian4. We decided to trust their suggestion, as they are experts when it comes to that market. And this is how The Chosen was created.

The Team Frater was created by a small team of a few people. The same team also made Space Hack, so everyone was experienced and knew exactly what to do. We didn't really use the help of external companies until now. A very talented and creative graphic designer, Daniel Marcin Szymczuk, created some of the human characters for us. He did great work and had an excellent feel for the mood of the game.

High-Level Goals The main goal was to create a game that was better than our previous one, Space Hack. We knew that the next game had to be more developed than our earlier productions. We know that the Space Hack setting was popular and the fact that Gas Powered Games is working on Space Siege confirmed that for us, but we decided to take another route and create a plot set in 19th century Europe. I think that our main goal - a game that's more developed and has an interesting mood / feel to it - has been achieved.

Technology We used our own engine, which we systematically modified, in the production of all our games. It is not very demanding equipment-wise, and that's why Frater / The Chosen can be played on lower computer configurations.

Development Timeline We started to work on Frater right after Space Hack was completed, so we have been working on it since 2004. The first master copy was published in September of 2006. We wanted this game to be published in Poland first and then later in other world markets. Now, I can see that this may have been a mistake. Since then, we improved the game, changed the appearance of the interface and characters, modified the balance and added many features.

Changes and Enhancements We did not made many changes during development. When you work with a small budget, you simply cannot afford to do so. Generally speaking, the main storyline had not been changed until its premiere in 2006. Only after that did we decide to make a few alterations. We added a pre-rendered intro movie, changed the interface and corrected a bug in the game that caused the graphical user interface not to appear properly on the screen. This only happened with a few video cards.

Major Challenges The gameplay balance is always a challenge. Regardless of the type of the game being produced, the play really determines its success or failure. To get it right, you need to test, test and test some more.

Combining / merging objects. One of our goals was to create a system that would allow the player to combine all objects with each other. It was a pretty daring decision, but it really worked out so that combining objects is a very strong point of our game.

The helpers are the second very important element. From the beginning, our goal was to provide the maximum satisfaction and enjoyment to anyone playing the game. Aside from Golem and Neferkar, there are many characters that also become helpers. With their help, you can break the barricade, clean the city and search the underground.